Beam sisters still competing against each other as coaches

Tuesday

Sep 10, 2013 at 2:00 AM

SLATE HILL — A soccer match was held Saturday at Minisink Valley. There's nothing particularly special about that except, when the match was over, the girls from communities 12 miles apart shook hands, set aside their on-field differences and bonded over pizza and apple cobbler.

Ken McMillan

SLATE HILL — A soccer match was held Saturday at Minisink Valley. There's nothing particularly special about that except, when the match was over, the girls from communities 12 miles apart shook hands, set aside their on-field differences and bonded over pizza and apple cobbler.

It's been a tradition in the making the past five years whenever sisters Erin (Beam) Natalizio and Nicole Beam have squared off on opposite coaching sidelines. Erin coaches at alma mater Minisink Valley and Nicole coaches at Port Jervis — Saturday's matchup was the season opener for both teams. It has carried over from softball season to soccer, and from the junior varsity level to varsity.

The idea of bringing together their teams probably harkens back to their childhood when the Beam home became the neighborhood hangout. Jerry and Mary Lynn Beam encouraged their kids to get outside and be active in sports. Jerry converted their sizable backyard into a soccer field with two goals, a softball diamond and a baseball diamond.

"When we got home from school, we would immediately go outside and play soccer,'' Nicole said. "You could count on us being outside for hours.''

Kids from all over played games at the Beam house, and Mary Lynn passed out Fudgsicles, drinks and home-baked cookies.

A timid girl gets her start

Erin may be outgoing now, but when she was small she was shy and timid and hung on her mother's leg, Mary Lynn said. One day the wife of a local soccer coach took Erin by the hand and coaxed her onto a field to play with other little girls. An athlete was born.

Nicole, two years younger than Erin, followed her big sister's lead into sports.

The Beam sisters began playing for the Minisink Valley Shamrocks, a travel soccer team coached by their father and Doug Smith. They played youth softball and they ran in a twilight track series in Middletown. Later, they played for their high school soccer team under Dave Osczepinski. Sports became more than a passion for the Beams — it became their profession.

Once the sisters became high school coaches they knew they wanted to bring their players, many of whom face one another in local youth leagues, into a social gathering.

"It's definitely a good thing,'' said Minisink Valley co-captain Alex Gallagher. "We all get along. We all talk. We like hanging out.''

The "Beam Bowl" attracts not only family members but friends and colleagues from both schools. There were plenty of aunts and cousins among the fans gathered under a huge shady tree on the spectator sideline, and Mary Lynn took her traditional midfield seat, not wanting to show favoritism toward either daughter.

The sisters greeted one another with a hug on Saturday and then returned to their teams. Blood is thick, but the family business is serious.

"To be honest, we are Beams through and through,'' Nicole said, "so even though we say it's a lot of fun, and there's a party afterward, we're Beams and we're competitive. ... We can make card games competitive.''

"I look forward most to this game every year,'' Erin said. "I get butterflies just as if it was the Section 9 championship. You want to play competitively, but at the same time you want to make one another proud, also.''

The sisters say there has never been hard feelings following a matchup, although Nicole admits racing home one time when they lived together to lock herself in her bedroom to avoid any discussion. When Erin asked her younger sister to be her maid of honor, Nicole said she "used it against her.''

"I said that for every goal she scored against me, it was another diss I could put into her maid of honor speech,'' Nicole joked.

Erin's Minisink Valley team got the best of Nicole's Port Jervis squad, 3-0, on Saturday. Afterward, the teams gathered for a feast that included pumpkin crisp, apple cobbler, truffles and brownies, a collection of treats that the Beams' mother baked on Friday night.

"It's great to see them come together,'' Mary Lynn said, reminded of the late afternoons when her backyard swarmed with kids. "It's a great camaraderie.''

kmcmillan@th-record.com; Twitter: @KenMcMillanTHR

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